Story+1981-08-27+Los+Angeles,+CA

“I don’t know what it is that when you hit that certain age that makes you, makes you grow away…grow away from your folks, I guess…I remember when I was, when I was eighteen, I was…I was all dressed up and ready to go, ready to…get a place on my own and move out of the house…I was sure I was never gonna, never gonna miss the town that I grew up in…and for a long time I never did but…I got to a point where…I wanted to know the answers to why things, the things that went wrong went wrong when I was young…and…I guess as you grow older, you realize that if you can’t, you can’t make peace with your family, your mom and your dad, you can’t ever, it seems like you can’t ever make it with yourself so (crowd cheers)…”
 * 27.08.81 Los Angeles, CA, intro to “Independence Day”**

“There’s a…when I was over in Europe, I read…I read “The History of the United States” and uh…which was something in school I wasn’t very interested in, didn’t care much about…and…as I got older, I watched what was happening to a lot of my friends, it seemed they quit school, they’d go out, they’d get a job, they’d end up working in the same, in the same factory and the same thing that their fathers did and…it sort of goes in a circle that, that never stops unless somebody stops it and (crowd cheers) it’s uh…I read the history, it was “The History of the United States” and I seen a lot of things, was a lot of things in there that, that’ll make proud and there’s a lot of things in there that’ll make you real ashamed and…but the important thing is you find out about it so that you don’t end up a victim of things that you don’t even know what they are, so that you end up (crowd cheers) just trying to understand some of the forces, some of the power that is gonna shape your life as you, as you grow older…it’s important to know where you’re coming from so that you can, you can try and figure out where you wanna go (?)(crowd cheers)…”
 * 27.08.81 Los Angeles, CA, intro to “This Land Is Your Land”**

“Ladies and gentlemen! (crowd cheers)…”
 * 27.08.81 Los Angeles, CA, intro to “Hungry Heart”**

“Alright…this is…this is for my little partner there… (…) There we were…it was me…and Steve…and the Big Man…we was walking home down the boardwalk one night…it was a long time ago…it was raining…and we couldn’t get a break, we couldn’t find no jobs, nobody would hire us…we didn’t have no instruments… we were feeling pretty old…I mean we were feeling real old, yeah…I was just waiting to get home and throw some Pop-Tarts in that toaster (crowd cheers) put on some Johnny Carson show and get back into bed, lay back, try and forget my problems…we were said “Oh, remember, we used to talk how we was never gonna get old? Never! Now, here we are, I’m feeling wrinkles (?) in my head right now” (chuckles) so we all went home and we went to bed (crowd cheers) now, I remember…all I remember was…laying there before I went to sleep, thinking about, I remember I read that book “Peter Pan” when I was a kid (crowd cheers) this Peter Pan, man, this cat said, the cat said you never have to get old wherever he lives and here we are and my back’s killing me, my feet’s killing me and all of a sudden I heard something up on the roof (crowd cheers) we, we climbed out the window, we didn’t know what it was so we attacked it – get him, boys! (Max makes a sort of rumbling sound on the drums) now…I said “Wait a minute, wait a minute…that’s Peter Pan we just knocked out, man!” (crowd cheers) my nephews are gonna kill me when they hear about this…but I mean how could you tell, first of all, he’d got real old (chuckles) and he’d put on a lot of weight too…he doesn’t look so good in that suit no more…we didn’t know what the heck we was gonna do, we decided we’d better wake this cat up before the kids in the neighborhood hear about this, get some water, get some, wake this cat up…and the cat’s starting to come to – get up there now, Pete (chuckles)…he’d changed a lot since he was little (chuckles) and we said – we ain’t, we ain’t no suckers, we got Peter Pan here, we’re gonna make a deal with him right now…we said “Peter, we heard all about this flying stuff, now won’t you sprinkle a little of that pixie dust on us so that we can take off?” (crowd cheers) this stuff better work too …oh yeah, yeah, ok, boys, if I remember right, now we gotta think some, gotta think some nice thoughts – Clarence, that leaves you out, alright (chuckles)(laughs from the audience) we were trying (?)(crowd cheers) we worked on that stuff for an hour and a half, we didn’t get no place so we started to get mad, we said “Pete, you better come up with some goods real fast (chuckles) if you wanna get back to Never-NeverLand…we’re gonna send you back to Never-NeverLand (chuckles) you better come up with some goodies”…(crowd cheers as “Peter” probably hands Bruce, Steve and Clarence their instruments)…that’s where we knew we had the secret now…(music starts again)…”
 * 27.08.81 Los Angeles, CA, intro to “Growin’ Up” (following “Sherry Darling”**

“That’s how we got here tonight!...(?)…(long pause)(crowd claps hands)…this is a song that…that I wrote about Elvis and…I remember when I was nine years old and he came on the Ed Sullivan Show and…I knew…I made my mother go out and get me a, rent me a guitar, I tried to learn how to play it but in those days all they taught you to play was, like, uh, standards and things, we weren’t teaching rock’n’roll music at the time…I remember I was, I was home and a friend of mine called me up and told me, told me that he died…and…I guess in a way it wasn’t…it wasn’t hard for me to understand but it was, it was the kind of thing like he, he was the guy that, he was so alive and had so much, so much spirit inside of him that it hurts to see, hurts to see somebody lose that slowly as he did…and…especially ‘cause, ‘cause he, he gave, you know, he, he gave, he gave a whole lot and in the end he deserved, deserved a lot better than what he got (crowd cheers)…”
 * 27.08.81 Los Angeles, CA, intro to “Johnny Bye Bye” (following “Growin’ Up”**

“Ladies and gentlemen…tonight…here on our stage…we got some young gentlemen here…I’m gonna introduce to you (crowd cheers) first…since all the cards and the letters keep coming in about how the poem that I wrote for Roy has become so inspirational and so moving to so many people, I feel I’m gonna have to recite it again (crowd cheers) thanks, folks…first, “R” is for “Roy” ‘cause that’s his name…”O” is for “piano” because that’s his game (crowd cheers) “Y” (crowd: “Because he likes it”) yes he does – Roy Bittan on the piano, ladies and gentlemen (crowd cheers) next…a young man on the guitar who brought you such great hits as “I don’t wanna go home,” “Sweeter than honey,” “This time it’s for real,” “Some things just don’t change,” “Daddy’s come home,” “Trapped again,” poet of the soul, master of rock’n’roll who wrote that great autobiographical hit, “I played the fool” – I’m talking about Miami Steve Van Zandt on the guitar (crowd cheers) yeah…on the bass guitar, a man who came all the way from Neptune, New Jersey just to play here tonight for you guys – I’m talking about the debonair, the handsome, the wonderful Mr. Garry W. Tallent (crowd cheers) he’s a little shy…on the back here we got a man on the drums, the king of the big beat, I’m talking about, from South Orange, New Jersey, the Mighty Max Weinberg on the drums (crowd cheers) next we got a man of many talents, on the organ, on the accordion (?) I’m talking about the multi-talented, a great humanitarian, a great veterinarian (?) a close personal friend of mine, Phantom Dan Federici on the organ (crowd cheers) and now last but not least (crowd cheers) once again I don’t blame you for being excited… because I wanna introduce to you a gentleman…he’s known as the king of the world…the master of the universe…the emperor of all things…he’s faster than a speeding bullet…more powerful than a roaring locomotive…able to leap tall women – I mean tall buildings in a single bound…now, what I wanna do, I wanna hear a C (crowd: “C”) an L ((crowd: “L”) an A (crowd: “A”) an R (crowd: “R”) an E (crowd: “E”) N ((crowd: “N”) C (crowd: “C”) E (crowd: “E”) what’s that spell? (crowd: “Clarence”) what’s that spell? (crowd: “Clarence”) what’s that spell? (crowd: “Clarence”) Spotlight on the Big Man…”
 * 27.08.81 Los Angeles, CA, middle of “Rosalita”**

“Thanks…I wanna, I wanna thank all you guys for coming out to the shows tonight (crowd cheers) I know, I know a lot of you guys been here a whole bunch of nights and (crowd cheers) and I know a lot of youse waited on line for a long time for your tickets and I want you to know that we appreciate it (crowd cheers) and this is for you…”
 * 27.08.81 Los Angeles, CA, intro to “Jungleland”**

“Are you talking to me? (crowd cheers) are you talking to me? (crowd cheers) you better talk louder than that! (crowd cheers)…”
 * 27.08.81 Los Angeles, CA, intro to “Twist and Shout”**

//Compiled by Johanna Pirttijärvi//